5/3/16

Sometimes there are ups and downs in life.

Mets' minors
lads, though, have their downs and ups.

In other words, previous week crappy, this past week much improved.

AAA Las Vegas and AA Binghamton both rebounded with very solid
weeks, including a Bingo 6 game win streak; and St Lucie and Columbia combined
to win half their games last week. All told, the 4 teams are a combined 7 over
.500, with the Lucites leading the foursome at 14-10. So how are some guys doing? Let's lift the hood and look at last week's Monday thru Sunday fun and games.

STARS OF THE WEEK:

WUILMER BECERRA: Willie B hit over .400 for the week to climb to .371. What
is most exciting to me about the 21 year old St Lucie OF is who he is doing all
that hitting against. How does a batting average of .396 against RIGHTIES
for the righty hitter strike you? Nothing short of amazing to me.
Consider also that he tore up lefties last year...exciting to ponde ra guy who
may be ready to explode. (Monday nite update: Becerra added 3 more hits - against eighties - and is now hitting .421 against them!)

Let me add this: some guys hit the famed Mack AA Wall: T J got to
AA in mid 2014 and has since put in about the equivalent of a 162 game stretch
of # 2 hitter time, and what has he done?Busted the wall: .336,
669 ABs, 105 R, 225 H, 47 2B, 10 HR, 91 RBIs.Amazing, really. (2 more hits Monday night)

AAA LAS VEGAS 51'S:

Vegas hit squad started firing on all cylinders last week, rapidly
climbing to finish the week at .275.

OFTy Kelly still has a
.483 OBP (2nd in PCL) despite getting on just twice in his last 13
plate appearances to end the week. Amazing.

IF TJ Rivera - a Star of the
Week...see above.

OF Travis Taijeron sitting
at .296/.407/.521; encouragingly, he is hitting a whopping .364 against
righties so far....his numbers are usually propped up by utterly destroying
lefties, so he may be on the cusp of a big year if the righty trend continues.

IF Matt Reynolds (.284)
had a 10 game hit streak snapped Sunday,

Struggling mighty in a limited role?Danny
Muno, 1 for 23 with 3 errors.

Pitching?The Sean
and Gabe Show continues, as both Sean Gilmartin and Gabe Ynoa have ERAs
well below 2 after 4 starts each. Gabe's lone concern to me is
his continued low K rate (12 in 24 IP), but a 1.48 ERA indicates it is working
for him.It worked for guys like Whitey
Ford too. (Monday nite, Ynoa added a solid winning start, pitching into the 7th)

Seth Lugo's fourth start was not good - but an improvement. It
did, however, bring his ERA down to 9.68.May he be pitcher of the month in May. He certainly hasn't been pitcher
of the year so far.

Paul Sewald – always doing well. He may have the best long term minor
league stats of anyone not yet in the majors - anywhere in baseball. His
career #'s are beyond sterling: 204 IP, nearly 250 K's, 1.89 ERA, very few
walks and only 7 homers allowed. And a 13-6 record with 49 of 52 saves.
Those #'s say one thing to me: Queens can't be too far away. (Add a perfect inning Mon. nite save)

LAST
WEEK, THEY WERE THE LOWLY THE.196 BOYS: This was, however, a very different week for 1st rounders Gavin
Cecchini and Brandon Nimmo. Still only 1 HR between them, but progress is
progress, with BOTH climbing over 60 points this week. (Cecchini added 2 for 3 Monday nite, climbing to .282, 100 points higher than 8 days earlier)

Nimmo had that one game where he went 0-4, with 4 Ks. Otherwise? In
his last 6 games, including that stinker, he had 9 hits and 2 walks and sits at
.260.Whew! Cecchini sputtered through mid-week, sliding to .182. But
those last 4 games, oh baby: he had 8 hits (including a tater) and 2 walks to
climb to .261. Time to stay on a tear, Gavin.

AA BINGHAMTON METS:

A bounce back week for the B Mets but most of the hitters are
parked between .233 and .278, so someone needs to get hot, pronto.

Jeff McNeil is still out
after the first 3 games (this is my get well card, Jeff),

Dominic Smith has crept up to
.259, with a .412 OBP.He does have a
team-leading 16 RBIs in 21 games, so once he really gets started, maybe we’ll
get a 100 RBI season from Smitty.

Phil Evans is doing his
Danny Muno imitation at 4 for 28.He
sits at .232 after about 1500 career plate appearances, in case you were
wondering.

The outfield is still struggling – Cruzado and Sabol are a combined 15 for 91. Jared King is the lone bright OF bat, with 7 hits in the past 4
games, but just 26 at bats so far this season for King.

The Pen: mostly
unimpressive so far.Let’s leave it at
that.

A - ST LUCIE METS:

The SLM's are 14-10 in 2016. HR hitting has not gotten them
where they are, as they have managed a mere 8 HRs in 24 games.

SS Amed Rosario continues
a fine campaign with 11 extra base hits in 23 games and a .305/.340/.537 stat
line. Almost time for Met fans to start drooling? Patience, rabid
fans...he won't be 21 until Thanksgiving.

Luis Guillorme is heating up a bit, and is up to .247. Amazingly, the slick glove man, in over 1,000 career at bats, has ZERO triples and
homers. By comparison, the patron saint of slap hitters, Bud Harrelson, was
like Giancarlo Stanton, with 45 triples & 7 dingers in 5,516 plate appearances.I await your first triple, Luis.

OF Wuilmer Becerra - see
above. My co-star of the week.

C Tomas Nido is hitting
nicely at .313 (just 6 Ks in 67 ABs).

Pitchers?Glad you asked.

Casey Delgado moved up to 4-0, 2.67 with his 4th solid start to the season. Undefeated
is a nice place to be. Ricky Knapp slipped
to 3-1 with a solid, 6 IP, 3 R loss, and a nifty ERA of 2.38.

Corey Oswalt followed 2 fine
starts with a bad fourth start - he allows too many hits, (294 in 263 career)
and needs to put that on a diet.

TURNAROUND TOSSERS:

1) Chris
Flexen was 0-3, 4.82, but then tossed a
gem for his first win this week, dropping his ERA to 3.76.I bet he takes off from here.

2) Scarlyn Reyes: a
decent start after 3 ghastly outings, but all it got him was a 4th straight loss,
with an ERA that descended from the stratosphere to 9.18.

A - COLUMBIA FIREFLIES:

Two hitting stars thru my prior update remain at the top of
the Fireflies’ list:

IF Vinny Siena: Vinny (“you
can call-a me Vincenzo, capisce?”) hasstill been on base almost 50% (26
hits and 19 walks in 23 games), not to mention 21 runs scored.

Some guys just don’t like to sit down.

3BDavid Thompson, hitting a solid .287 with 12 extra
base hits and a terrific 27 RBIs (7 games out of the last 10 with 2 or more
RBIs) – some of those RBIs no doubt due to Siena being on base constantly in
front of him.Both need to cut down on
the Ks (a combined 45 times in 47 games).

1B Dash Winningham; Dash has an
absolutely amazing low K rate (7 in 85 plate appearances, one in his last 9
games) for a young future slugger, and a .372 OBP in 21 games.Consider that he struck out 102 times in
about 475 plate appearances in 2014 and 2015 and the improvement is astonishing
in that regard.

OF Ivan Wilson - his strikeouts year
to date are improved and he clocked his 3rd homer in an 8 game span on Saturday
nite. Ivan, do what Dash does and keep those K’s dropping.

SS Milton Ramos (a sluggish .200 through 19 games)

3BJ.C. Rodriguez - .140 on April 23 but a 7 game
hit streak since (8 hits, and 4 walks). Very nice bounce back week,
JC.

The Fire Flies' hurlers doing well this week include born-in-Belfast–Ireland’s
PJ Conlon (3-0, 1.14, 1 walk in 23.2 IP). The Lefty Leprechaun is sitting at an amazing 0.66 after 21 career
outings and 40.2 IP.

Joe Shaw and Chase Ingram stay
solid - both are 2-1, with ERA’s in the 2’s, with a combined 52 Ks and 7 BB’s
in 43 IP. In the pen, Alex Palsha sits at 4.22, but has K’d 19 in 10.2
innings.

7
comments:

Really exciting to see both Rosario and Becerra putting it together. I expect to see Rosario in Bingo before May is out, and Becerra, if he keeps hitting, around the all-star break. The Bronx's TJ Rivera is writing himself a really nice story. I wonder if he might be first man up (ahead of Reynolds) in case of an injury to an infielder. Even without an injury, I think he has a legit argument to replace Soup on the roster at some point this season. I certainly wouldn't complain.

@ ZOZO: looks good, but I really would like to see Cespedes considered long term. This guy just might hit 50 homers someday.

Mack, I agree with you mostly...Conforto could actually hit us 40 homers some day, but the rest would be light on Long ball if and until proven otherwise.

Adam, Soup hasn't hit since before they invented soup. I'd be open to Rivera as first call up (sorry, Matt, who BTW struck out 4 times last night) and call him up soon, if Soup fails to hit much longer.

Soup has been up 11 times this year. If one of his lineouts or ground outs goes through for a single his average would jump from .182 to .272. The numbers don't mean a thing.

It's hard to hit when you don't play.

I am curious about Rivera too, and he might be a better option than Soup, or even Flores, but it's totally unfair to make any assessment about Soup's contributions so far. He's a classic 25th man, can play a variety of positions, glad to be on the team, etc.